Adorable Story #73: Jayne Mansfield

Hollywood’s Blonde Bombshell

“If you’re going to do something wrong, do it big, because the punishment is the same either way.”

— Jayne Mansfield

Jayne Mansfield playing Roulette in Las Vegas — Photo © by Frank Worth

Jayne Mansfield was an American movie, stage, and television actress. She was also a nightclub entertainer, a singer, and one of the early Playboy Playmates. Mansfield became a major Broadway star in 1955, a major movie star in 1956, and a major celebrity in 1957.

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Early Life and Career Beginnings

Jayne Mansfield (born Vera Jayne Palmer) was the only child of Herbert William Palmer (1904–1936) and Vera Jeffrey (née Palmer) Palmer (1903–2000). She was born on April 19, 1933, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Her father was of German descent and her mother was of English descent.

After her father’s death in 1936, her mother remarried with Harry Lawrence Peers and they all moved to Dallas, Texas. After high school graduation, Jayne studied acting at Southern Methodist University and the University of Texas at Austin.

While in college, she had a number of small jobs such as hat check girl and nightclub photographer. She won many beauty pageants, including the Miss California local round at the UCLA, before her husband Paul Mansfield found out and forced her to withdraw from the competition.

She inherited more than USD 90,000 from her maternal grandfather, Thomas Palmer (approximately USD 1 million in 2024 dollars), and more than USD 36,000 from her maternal grandmother, Beatrice Mary Palmer, in 1958 (USD 380,000 in 2024 dollars).

In addition to English, she spoke four other languages: she learned French, Spanish, and German in high school, and later in 1963 she would start studying Italian.

Playboy

In December 1953, Hugh Hefner began publishing Playboy. The magazine became a success, in part, because of early appearances from Mansfield, Marilyn Monroe, Bettie Page, and Anita Ekberg.